April 26, 2004

A Single Pearly White

Hooray! Today we felt the edges of Kate's first tooth poking out in front on her bottom gumline. This would explain why we've had such horrible night's sleeps the past few nights. We look forward to seeing more of that beautiful smile in the weeks, months and years to come.

April 25, 2004

Sunday Picnic

It was such a lovely day out that we decided to pick up some Subway and have a little picnic at the local park. Although Kate didn't get any Subway, she still enjoyed the scenery and the strings on her Flaphappy monogrammed hat.

April 24, 2004

Kate's Big Girl Bath

Today Kate had some real fun in the big girl bath. She loved all of the yellow duckies and the big purple octopus floating around.

Coincidentally, Ken and I both had bath pictures taken of us at around the same age. From left to right, Ken is 5 months, Kate is 6 months and I am 7 months old. Doesn't Kate look like a perfect "If They Mated" picture for the Conan O'Brien show?

April 23, 2004

Crib Play

Although there's nothing in particular to report I just had to post these pictures of Kate. Not only is she now sitting like a pro, she's also starting to spend more and more time playing alone. Independent play is a very good thing for mommy and daddy. We really enjoy the small amount of down time we gain from it. Although Kate doesn't really like sleeping in her crib she sure doesn't mind playing in there. Hopefully one day she'll peter out and fall asleep. Wouldn't that be nice?

Some pictures I took...

Some pictures Ken took (Notice how much more she hams it up for him?)...

Sleepless in South Florida

On this blog we've been asked at least twice if Kate is sleeping in her crib yet. That question doesn't even compare to the number of times we've been asked (offline) if Kate is sleeping through the night. Well, the answer to both is yes and no. Kate has slept in her crib, but she does not sleep in her crib through the night. Kate does sleep through the night but not always.

Sleep has been the number one problem for all of us. Ken and I admit that we are the first people to blame. Not knowing this would ever be an issue, we never came up with "a plan" before Kate was born. My mother always touted that I was the best sleeper. I always slept through the night. And I loved my naps. So of course I thought Kate would naturally fall into my very same footsteps. Now I know. My mother was lying! ;-)

We've been tackling our sleep issues one baby step at a time. In the beginning it was just getting Kate to sleep...so we relied on the swing. Then it was moving her into her bassinet. Now, it's getting into some type of schedule and moving her into her crib. We're still working on this little project.

I read an article, Sleep Success! How one mom got her baby to snooze through the night -- and what you can learn from her bedtime makeover in the March 2004 issue of Parenting magazine. The article outlined a story of a 10-month old with sleep problems similar to Kate's. The "plan" for sleeping success was hopeful, but also very challenging. It was created by Kim West (a/k/a The Sleep Lady). I visited her website and immediately purchased the 27-page booklet, "The Sleep Lady Guideline Booklet" to hopefully get some more light shed on this little sleeping problem.

One of the more important things I read was that there is a small window of time when it is a child's natural time to sleep. If you miss that window, then the baby will begin to secrete hormones. Cortisol is one of those hormones and it acts like adrenaline. So the baby may be all wide-eyed and awake but, instead, they are really wired and overtired. And the high level of Cortisol now keeps the baby from having a good nights sleep. So keeping your baby awake during the day to wear them out for a good night's sleep is a complete myth. You hear that mother? In fact, the Sleep Lady says, "the more babies sleep, the more they sleep. The less babies sleep, the less they sleep."

So a month or two ago I started on that premise. I worked on getting Kate to just sleep more. Yes, I know there are certain places (like the crib) for her to sleep but if she was overtired I didn't expect much success. So, by whatever means -- in her baby sling, in my arms, in the stroller, wherever -- I got her to sleep. It seemed to be working because she started showing signs of slumber around the same times every day. And unlike before, she would easily fall into her naps. At times I would put her in her crib for her naps and for her early evening sleep, and she would sleep wonderfully. We were moving along on the right track.

But then two thing happened...we introduced solids into her breastfeeding-only diet and she's started teething. Both of these milestones have been wreaking havoc on our efforts. The solids have made Kate gassy and caused her to have to pass very unfamiliar stools, which she doesn't really like at all. And the teething causes her to become more restless. Sometimes she'll just wake up and start crying in pain. Ugh! It's awful.

Also, I don't know about other babies but Kate prefers to sleep on her stomach. Because of SIDS I was very reluctant to put Kate on her stomach. Now that she's developing and much more mobile I feel more comfortable about doing it. I still will not do it at night while Ken and I are sleeping, but I will do it during the day and early evening hours when I can supervise her.

Ironically, Kate is sleeping soundly in her crib right now but it took my husband nearly an hour to get her settled in. We're just going to have to keep working on this little problem. I think consistency is what will make make us all sleep more soundly in the end.

Otherwise, Kate is so friendly and happy. She's generally smiling all day long. Sometimes I think these sleeping issues bother us much more than they bother her.

April 18, 2004

Kate's "Time" Cut Short

ILLUSTRATION FOR TIME BY EDWIN FOTHERINGHAM

Time Magazine interviewed Jean-Marie back in February for an article on baby blogs and how they are the new "family album." We have been waiting for this article to appear and just found out that most of our contributions to the article were pared down to a single sentence. Unfortunately, the sentence did not even mention Kate or the URL of this site so there was no way anyone could really find us. Bummer. After reading the article titled The New Family Album, let us know if you think Kate's site should have made the cut ;-)

April 16, 2004

Midnight Laughing

After last night's midnight feeding Kate feel asleep in my arms as I was burping her. Not wanting to disturb her, we left her where she was while Jean-Marie and I watched an episode of Arrested Development that was stored on TiVo. This is one of those shows that Jean-Marie and I cannot watch without laughing out loud; and, despite our efforts to muffle our laughs, Kate woke up. Just when we thought we were going to feel guilty for waking our peacefully sleeping baby, Kate gave each of us a glance and then started to laugh hysterically. She was laughing so hard that her little body was jiggling, and this just made Jean-Marie and I laugh even more...which in turn made Kate laugh more. You can see where this was going. Eventually we all caught our breath and decided it was time for all of us to go to sleep, but Jean-Marie and I definitely put this up there as one of Kate's recent "cute" moments.

April 14, 2004

6 Month Well-Baby Visit

Every pediatrician visit shows new changes in Kate. It's a single day each month where Ken and I can take a good look at how much Kate has developed that month and since birth. At this visit Kate was very interested in pulling and crinkling the sanitary paper on the examination table, as well as studying the plastic strap that holds the paper down.

Following her immunization shots -- DTP/DTaP/DT/Td and Hib -- Kate of course cried; but as soon as Ken picked her up, she was calm. I think it also helped that I started singing Kate's favorite new song The Itsy Bitsy Spider. I really hit jackpot when I found out that song always makes her smile. It's great for when she gets fussy in the car, while we're out and about or before naptime. I'm sure a few onlookers have probably been entertained by my performance as well, but I doubt it'll win me American Idol.

Kate's growing has slowed down a bit. This month she weighed in at 15 lbs and 26-1/2 inches. She doesn't have another well-baby visit until July, so it'll be interesting to see how much she grows between now and then.

April 11, 2004

In Her Easter Bonnet

We didn't get to take many pictures on Easter Day, but I snuck in a few on the car ride home following our holiday festivities. We of course had to post at least one picture of Kate in her Easter bonnet. Next year she'll be hunting eggs!

April 08, 2004

Happy Easter!

April 07, 2004

Happy 6-Month Birthday

April 06, 2004

What's Up Doc?

Kate had her first taste of what my husband would consider "real" solid foods. And in honor of Easter Bunnies everywhere we gave Kate carrots for her first taste. She seemed to really enjoy them. She especially seemed to really enjoy making a mess with them. One food down. Maybe we'll try some greens next.

April 05, 2004

Sitting Pretty

Ken and I have been joking that if the baby newsletters say it, then it will be true. If that week the newsletter says Kate's supposed to making razzing noises, she does it. If it says she's supposed to roll, she does it. Well, this week it said she's supposed to start to sit up by herself, and of course on cue Kate has started to sit up on her own. She's not able to do it for very long periods of time, but so far she's got pretty good balance. Look. She can even do it and smile at the same time. I think it's almost time for Ken to finish babyproofing the house like the newsletters say.

April 01, 2004

Sleep Deprivation

Anything can happen when you're a little sleep deprived, right? Well, between work, preparing our tax info for the accountants and losing sleep because of Kate's recent late night wakings, Ken missed a little something while preparing Kate for bed the other night. After Kate's bath, Ken let Kate play in her crib before getting her dressed and ready for bed. She still will not sleep in her crib, by George, but she will hang out and play in there. Anyway, after getting her ready for bedtime he passed her off to me to settle her down to sleep. During my little ritual I usually give Kate repetitive pats on her tushy to calm her. After my first pat I realized something was a little different. I didn't feel that cushy padding, nor did I hear that hollow tapping sound. Instead I felt Kate's little baby tushy. Ken forgot to put on Kate's diaper.